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Other Forms of Tuberculosis
The number of new cases notified during the year was 5.
Of the total notifications, 8 were received from medical practitioners; 42 from the
Uxbridge Chest Clinic; 5 from General Hospitals; and 12 from St. Bernard's Hospital.
Deaths from Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis of the respiratory system, 8; other forms, nil.
For details of new cases notified and deaths in 1955, see Appendix, Table IX, and
for the occupation of new cases see Appendix, Table X.
Public Health (Prevention of Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1925
Public Health Act, 1936, Section 172
Action under these powers was not necessary during the year.
The number of new notifications fell from 78 in 1954 to 67 in 1955. This is the lowest
notification figure for many years. The last time the number of notifications was below
67 was in 1942, and this figure has been falling steadily since 1952 when the number of
notifications was 123.
The number of deaths from tuberculosis was 8, the corresponding number for 1954
being 13. This constitutes the lowest figure for deaths from the disease recorded in the
past 25 years (see Graph B) during which Southall's population has been increasing steadily.
The population was estimated at 37,560 in 1930 as compared with 53,840 in mid-1955.
Of the 8 deaths, 2 had previously not been notified as cases of tuberculosis, and, therefore,
were carrying the disease without it being suspected.
Although these figures give grounds for some satisfaction with regard to the incidence
of tuberculosis within the Borough, it is still very disturbing to find that there can be persons
carrying the organism in an active state and only discovered to be doing so by post-mortem
examination. These are the really dangerous members of the community, although quite
innocently so, and it is, therefore, all the more important that the provision of Mass X-ray
facilities should be made as widespread as possible since every single unsuspected case
discovered by this method must reduce the risk to a considerable number of other members
of the population.
The National Association for Prevention of Tuberculosis held a Conference during
the year attended by doctors, nurses and administrators from all parts of the world, and
the progress of tuberculosis, the White Plague, was freely discussed, and experiences were
shared on the preventive measures found to be most effective in different places. There
are still parts of the world where tuberculosis is an increasingly widespread and fatal disease,
and, as with diphtheria and smallpox, such success as has been obtained in the improvement
of statistics in this country, must not blind field workers to the fact that vigilance is
necessary all of the time. The raising of nutritional and environmental conditions has
always a good effect on the lowering of the incidence of tuberculosis, but from the
experiences of workers in other countries it seems that the greatest stress must be laid on
the discovery of unsuspected cases by Mass X-raying of the general public, particularly
the adolescent groups and factory workers, Tuberculin testing of contacts of discovered
cases and the B.C.G. inoculation of susceptible persons, as infection can occur even when
economic circumstances are very good and where space and other environmental amenities
are fully available.
The analysis of the housing conditions of new cases shows that of the notified patients
living in Southall, exclusive of the St. Bernard's Hospital notifications, and of those
transferred into the Borough having developed tuberculosis elsewhere, housing conditions
were reasonably good in all except five instances. All of these five were living in overcrowded
conditions, two of them in slum property, but during 1955 four of these families were
rehoused by the Borough Council and it was anticipated that the fifth would be rehoused
during 1956.
Those cases ascertained in previous years to be living in statutorily overcrowded
conditions and containing in the family a tuberculous patient have been rehoused, with
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